Dr Georgios Samaras
Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Int’l School for Government
The Policy Institute
georgios.samaras [at] kcl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 7325
30 Aldwych
Bush House - North East Wing
King’s College London
Room 8.09
WC2B 4BG
Instagram / Twitter
Publications
Who votes for the Far Right? Lessons learnt from Greece. Palgrave Macmillan. Forth.My PhD thesis, which investigates the voting behavior of far-right voters across Greece from 2012 to 2019 and explores the factors drawing them to far-right extremism, including digital radicalization, is currently being developed into a book with Palgrave Macmillan.
Hide & Seek on Twitter and Facebook: How Greek Extremists organised on Social Media. Accepted at Discourse, Context & Media. Forth.
The forthcoming publication thoroughly examines the strategies employed by far-right extremists affiliated with Golden Dawn to sustain their presence and activity across two prominent social media platforms, namely Twitter and Facebook. It delves into the multifaceted tactics they utilized, exploring how they capitalized on their anonymity and leveraged the array of options available to them within these platforms.
Outlawing Golden Dawn: Dealing with Right-wing Extremism in Greece, European Institute of the Mediterranean Yearbook.
Following a five-year trial, a Greek court in October 2020 sentenced Golden Dawn's leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos and former members to prison, closing numerous party headquarters across Greece. Despite the trial's positive reception, concerns linger about the party's potential resurgence fueled by nostalgia for dictatorship and economic challenges.
A Nostalgia for the Dictatorship: How Politics, Religion and Masculinity Shaped the Voting Behaviour of Greek Far-right Supporters during the Fiscal Crisis. Working Paper.
During Greece's fiscal crisis (2012-2019), the far-right, led by Golden Dawn, intensified political turmoil. Absorbing voters from LAOS, Golden Dawn dominated far-right politics. Few studies directly engage with Golden Dawn voters. This paper uses interviews to explore the role of religion and masculinity in Greek politics, noting their appeal, akin to the Regime of the Colonels.
Running a Party from Prison: Leadership and Communications of the Neofascist Spartans. Working Paper.
In this essay, I analyse the case of Spartans, a Greek far-right party led by Ilias Kasidiaris, former MP, and spokesperson of the extreme-right Golden Dawn. Spartans is a peculiar case as it was being run by Kasidiaris while he was in prison. To provide context, I discuss the conviction of Golden Dawn in 2020 for operating as a criminal organization and how Spartans emerged as its continuation.
Golden Running a Party from Prison: Leadership and Communications of the Neofascist Spartans. Working Paper.
New media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter revolutionized communication, blurring the lines between online and offline actions. Golden Dawn, Europe's first openly neo-Nazi party to secure parliamentary seats post-World War II, faced media bans after a physical attack on live television in June 2012. Scholars suggest Golden Dawn shifted its focus online, using social media to spread messages and broaden its appeal. This study analyzes 108 YouTube videos from 2012 to 2019, employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to uncover the party's messaging.
Greek Left post SYRIZA. Neo-marxist politics in the area of realignment. Working Paper.
In this paper, I assert that the decline of SYRIZA in 2023 as a left-wing party has precipitated significant transformations within the Greek left. This shift has led to the emergence of smaller neo-Marxist parties, signaling a broader trend observed across Europe. As the mainstream left weakens, centrist and, in some instances, center-right ideological shifts gain prominence.
Opening the Floodgates of Hate: An Investigation into Golden Dawn's Online Extremism. PhD Thesis.
This thesis is a study of the Greek far-right party Golden Dawn and its activity on three social media platforms from 2012 to 2019: YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. This study also investigates voting behaviour to contextualise Golden Dawn’s strategy on social media.
Reports
Sliding Away from Unity. University of Oxford - Department of Politics and International Relations (OxPol). Link.
Swift Moves: Tackling Europe's Far-Right Tango with Taylor: Poll to Poll 2024. King’s College London. Link.
Normalisation and Co-existence: extremist tendencies in centre-right factions. ETERON Institute Papers. Link.
Party Movement and Authoritarian Tendencies in Greece. ETERON Institute Papers. Link.
Pamphlet No 8: First Thoughts on the 25th June 2023 Election in Greece. PSA Greek Politics. Link.
Pamphlet No 7: First Thoughts on the 21st May 2023 Election in Greece. PSA Greek Politics. Link.
The normalisation of the far-right in Greek politics. ECPR - Illiberalism Paper Series. Link.
The Far-right in Greece and the Parliament. ENA Institute for Alternative Policies Papers. Link.
The Greek Far-Right after Golden Dawn: what’s next? C-REX - University of Oslo. Link.
Book Reviews
The Politics of Memory in the Italian Populist Radical Right. LSE Review of Books. Link.
Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump. LSE Review of Books. Link.
The Capitol Riots: Digital Media, Disinformation, and Democracy Under Attack, edited by Jeppesen et al. International Journal of Press/Politics: 10.1177/19401612231172315.
The Culture of Democracy - A Sociological Approach to Civil Society, edited by Bin Xu. Democratization: 10.1080/13510347.2022.2142209.
Rise of the Extreme Right: A Lowy Institute Paper: Penguin Special, edited by Lydia Khalil. Politics, Religion, and Ideology: 10.1080/21567689.2022.2146283.